By Myself
by Archangela
Summary: R for excessive amount of angst. A terrifically angsty songfic to Linkin Park's "By Myself". This is about Sirius' suffering in Azkaban. Pure angst, I warn you. Please read and review.


AN: Omigod, what did I do?! I actually wrote something the doesn't concern D/H, or H/H or even R/H… wow, the summer heat must be _really _getting to me. Hey, A LOT OF MISERY UP AHEAD. Get acquainted with your back button if creepy anguish squicks you. But whatdahell, drop me a review, okay?

Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.K. Rowling. Song belongs to Linkin Park… (well, they performed it.) Anything else? Angst, and misery and torture and whatever… *looks around expectantly* Well? Blame, flame, flatter, batter me with that teeny little review button down there.

Dedicated to: Me. I've been locked inside my mind, and in my case, this is Azkaban a million times over. Probably to Miguel as well, it's his birthday today. 

Note: Sirius angst while he was in Azkaban. This is before the third book, okay?

**__**

By Myself

One thin, battered and broken man lay on the floor of the cold stone cell. In the half-light of the moon, one could see his gaunt face, and anybody who has spent a year in the wizarding world could recognize him as the famed murderer of twelve Muggles and one defenseless wizard by the name of Peter Pettigrew: Sirius Black.

__

What do I do to ignore them behind me?

Suddenly a faint rustling noise echoed under the metal bars that served as his door. The man's reaction to this soft sound was incredibly disturbing. 

Sirius drew back as the dementor passed his cell. He closed his eyes for another bout of bone-breaking cold, he curled up against the horrible memories only he could know. He clamped his skeletal hands over his ears, trying to block out the screams of the people… or what was left of the people around him. 

But it was no use, for inside, Sirius was screaming too.

__

Do I follow my instincts blindly?

For the last twelve years, he had been living on nothing but the grim belief that he was innocent. It was his last shot, he was clutching blindly on the tatters of hope. 

But it was enough. With his feeble transformations into an Animagus, he could survive. For a while. 

__

Do I hide my pride from these bad dreams

And give in to sad thoughts that are maddening?

Still, Sirius could feel his resolve coming to an end. He was the only one who knew the truth, and without outside help, he could be suffering in Azkaban until the day the dementors finally drove him to insanity.

As he sat in the dying light of day, Sirius listened to the incoherent gabbling of his neighbors, trapped inside their minds for all of eternity. He could hear the ghastly sounds of bodies being flung against the wall, of people believing if they crashed against the rock hard enough, they would break free of their own dementia.

Sirius knew that if he didn't get out soon, he would become one of them… a lost soul.

__

Do I sit here and try to stand it?

The screaming began. Sirius shut his eyes. The shrieks of the ones who still couldn't accept that they were trapped in a stone coffin with their darkest fears. The moans of the ones who had accepted, but continued to claw at the walls, bloodying their wasted bodies. The whimpers of the ones who knew they didn't have long to live. 

And the most chilling of all, was the silence of the ones who were worse than dead.

__

Or do I try to catch them red-handed?

Sirius felt his weak resistance crack. He moaned, and in a blink of an eye, he became a dog. A large dog, yet thing and emaciated, it's fur long and matted. The dog curled up in a corner of the cell, seeking comfort that even its human body could not find.

__

Do I trust some and get fooled by phoniness?

Watery moonlight streamed through the bars in his cell, and the dog could hear the crazed howls of the ones out there, who believed they could become a creature of the night, and walk the halls of Azkaban and terrify others like they were terrified themselves. 

The dog trembled at the howls, and the human part of him began to shake with painful memory. 

__

Remus. He could save me… The dog lay down on the floor, a shadow in a dark cell, a shadow in a dark world. _My god, James… please… will you ever forgive me?_

Or do I trust nobody and live in loneliness?

Sirius knew no one would believe him. Everyone was too caught up in their grief over Peter, that poor young man, who never amounted to anything, but to give himself up for his best friends, Lily and James, who were murdered by the same soul who killed Peter too.

Sirius knew.

__

Because I can't hold on

When I'm stretched so thin

He was getting lost. Lost in the wandering tunnels of his own misery. He found less and less comfort in his Animagus. 

Sirius, back in his human body, glanced down at the dirty rags that covered his skeletal frame. If he wasn't mentally deteriorating as fast as some of the creatures around him, he was surely dying physically.

__

I make the right moves but I'm lost within

After all, if you're lost in the darkness of your own mind, why lose yourself in something as trivial as a stone maze lined with dying creatures that once were human beings? 

__

I put on my daily façade

Everyday, a tortuous routine filled with pain, hunger and corruption.

__

But then, I just end up getting hurt again

And always, there were the dementors. Reminding him of a past he could no longer occupy once more. Reminding him of the evil of the world. Reminding him of the day he, more or less, killed his two dearest friends.

__

By myself

I ask why

But in my mind

I find

I can't rely on myself

Sirius put a cold, gaunt hand to his forehead. _I can't trust. I've forgotten how to love. It's all hope. Hope so faint I can't even be sure it's there at all. Damnit, I can't even trust myself to hold on to life!_

I can't hold on

To what I want when I'm stretched so thin

He knew he was breaking. He could feel the coldness beginning to seep in, clawing at his skin, at his heart, at his very soul. The evil of emptiness awaited him, and he wasn't sure if he could resist.

__

It's all too much to take in

I can't hold on

To anything, watching everything spin

The chilling screams, the rattling breath of the dementors, the waves of coldness and the awful dark that waited for him with bated breath and sharp claws.

He was going to break.

__

With thoughts of failure sinking in

Many times, the siren call of suicide seemed to him the most beautiful song in the world. Even the cold stars outside seemed to whisper it to him, telling him that he would never be able to be in their glow ever again. 

But then, there was no way to die. No way, but the slow decay of his mind, body and soul. 

And as always, the smallest particle of faith. Smaller than the specks of dust in the musty corners of his cell, but enough to make him long of the day, that impossibly far-away day when he would be set free.

__

If I turn my back I'm defenseless

But to go blindly seems senseless

He was weak. He was bare. He was suspect to the disease and the decay in that stone hell. He could die.

__

If I hide my pride and let it all go on

Then they'll take from me 'til everything is gone

Sirius knew, with his own grim realization, that if he forgot that fragment of faith, if he lost it in the grip of despair, the dementors would drain him dry and devoid of all that he ever loved and cherished. 

That's why he was still there, after twelve years of pain and anguish, that's why he wasn't huddled up in a ball and screaming like the living corpses around him. He had the smallest particle of hope.

__

If I let them go I'll be outdone

But if I try to stop them, I'll get outrun

Sirius Black knew that somewhere out there was a godson of his. A godson who probably thought that he was a cold-blooded murderer. A godson who - heaven forbid - blamed him for his parents' death. 

And this knowledge filled him with white-hot rage. There was now way that he was going to let the boy that James had entrusted to him grow up believing that he, Sirius Black, was a murderer.

__

If I'm killed by the questions like a cancer

I'll be buried in the silence of the answer

He had a plan. Would it work? Would it fail? Could he get caught? Could he die? Will he ever get out? Will he ever learn how to live like a human again?

Sirius buried his face in his near-lifeless hands. Too many questions, without an answer. All he had to do was just go ahead and work the plan, and if he failed… 

He raised his eyes to the dark of night, eyes that were burning with fiery rage and resolve. _If I fail, then I die._

How do you think I've lost so much?

Sirius knew he was clutching at straws. He had nothing to lose… since he lost everything the day he was thrown in Azkaban. He had lost his friends, two to death, one to false belief, and one to Voldemort's corruption. He had lost his family… in fact, let's say that he never had one in the first place. He had lost trust, love and truth. 

Maybe he had even lost humanity.

__

I'm so afraid

Fear. It was a constant part of his "life". It lurked under black cloaks, it rested in rotting hands, and it floated around him in the death-rattle sound of the dementors. It sat in corners, crouched in a ball, screaming its heart to pieces. It lived inside of him, lingered in his sunken eyes, caressed every single nerve in his wasted body.

__

I'm out of touch

He couldn't eat anymore, the food corrupted by the evil stench of death and dread. He couldn't sleep, his frail dreams taking him to places of dark and malignancy. He couldn't breathe straight, his shallow breaths caught in his thin chest, afraid of losing it.

__

How do you expect I will know what to do

When all I know is what you tell me to

Sirius was never one for rules. With the grim smile on his face, he could hold on to the wistful memories of the days he and the rest of the Marauders would run around Hogwarts, under the magical cloaking of their Animagi, and James' Invisibility Cloak. He could remember McGonagall's stern voice, telling the four of them that there wasn't one rule that they hadn't broken yet. 

But here, in the hell that Azkaban was, he was ruled by evil, by fear, by his own guilt.

__

Don't you know

I can't tell you how to make it go

No matter what I do, how hard I try

I can't seem to convince myself why

I'm stuck on the outside

Yes, there were periods of disbelief. Times when he would join the crowd around him, when he would angrily, desperately throw himself at the bars, screaming for mercy and justice… though neither came. What would come instead would be dementors by the dozen, choking him with fear and flooding his body with ice. And he would slump to the floor, sparse tears in his unseeing eyes.

However, there were no more tears now. It seems that Sirius Black has forgotten how to cry.

__

By myself

Lost, lonely, abandoned, and more or less forgotten, he lay in Azkaban, forsaken by the people he once called friends.

__

I ask why

But in my mind

His mind, a twisting maze of dark tunnels lined with blood-red thoughts of failure and despair. A mind in which one could wander and get lost in, and in which one could die of fear.

__

I find

I can't rely on myself

Sirius had lost all trust, all love. He couldn't trust anyone, sadly, not even himself.

__

I can't hold on

To what I want when I'm stretched so thin

He flexed his aching fingers slowly. Through these fingers had slipped many things. Peter, for one… that little, lying rat. He had let go of love a long time ago. He had let friendship slip away. 

But one thing he was going to hang onto for dear life was: hope.

__

It's all too much to take in

His plan was almost ready. It would be an action done with pure adrenaline. Something he should have done years ago. However… would it work?

__

I can't hold on

To anything watching everything spin

He could die. He could drown in that sea he would have to swim across. He could get caught.

__

With thoughts of failure sinking in

However, there was hope. And for now, that was all he needed.


End file.
